PART 2
The words struck Emily harder than the rain.
“Your employer reported you missing three days ago.”
For several seconds, she forgot the pain in her leg.
She forgot Andrew standing behind her.
She forgot the iron gate separating her from the woman holding the federal identification badge.
Three days?
Emily stared through the rain at Special Agent Rebecca Sloan.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “I worked yesterday.”
Rebecca’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
A tiny tightening around the eyes.
The look of someone hearing exactly what she had feared she might hear.
Behind Emily, Andrew recovered first.
“This is ridiculous.”
His voice was louder now.
Confident.
Almost offended.
The same voice he used whenever a waiter brought the wrong order or someone questioned him at work.
“My wife is confused. She fell in the kitchen tonight. She’s been under tremendous emotional stress.”
Emily turned her head.
Andrew stood on the patio beneath the yellow porch light.
Margaret had appeared behind him in a robe.
Harold hovered farther back.
Nobody looked concerned about Emily’s leg.
Nobody asked why she was lying in mud beneath freezing rain.
Margaret’s first question was worse.
“How did she get outside?”
Rebecca heard it.
Emily saw that immediately.
The agent’s gaze shifted from Margaret to the missing ventilation grate beside the back door.
Then to the bottle opener still clutched in Emily’s hand.
Then to Emily’s swollen leg.
Andrew stepped forward.
“Agent Sloan, whatever she told you—”
“She hasn’t told me anything.”
Rebecca’s voice was calm.
That frightened Andrew more than shouting would have.
Two men emerged from the vehicles behind her.
One wore a dark jacket marked FBI.
The other was a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police detective Emily recognized vaguely from local television.
Detective Marcus Bell.
Rebecca approached the keypad beside the gate.
“Mr. Carter, open this gate.”
Andrew folded his arms.
“You don’t have a warrant.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “But I do have an injured woman asking for help.”
“I didn’t ask—”
Emily raised her voice.
“Yes.”
Everyone went silent.
She swallowed and tried again.
“Yes. I’m asking.”
Rebecca looked directly at her.
“Do you want us to enter this property?”
“Yes.”
Andrew’s face changed.
For the first time that night, Emily saw something beneath his anger.
Fear.
Rebecca nodded toward Detective Bell.
“Call medical.”
Andrew moved toward the control panel.
Not to open the gate.
To disable it.
Rebecca saw him.
“Don’t touch that.”
He stopped.
Margaret rushed forward.
“This is our home!”
“And she is your daughter-in-law,” Rebecca replied. “Currently lying injured in the yard.”
“She’s dramatic.”
The words slipped from Margaret automatically.
Emily almost laughed.
Even now.
Even with police outside.
Margaret still believed she could reduce reality to a character flaw.
Rebecca looked at Emily again.
“How long have you been unable to leave?”
Emily opened her mouth.
Her answer should have been simple.
Since tonight.
Since they took her phone.
Since Andrew locked the documents away.
But then fragments began connecting.
Andrew insisting on driving her to work.
Margaret collecting her phone “so Emily could focus on recovering emotionally.”
Her bank password suddenly failing.
Her manager supposedly approving three remote workdays that Emily didn’t remember requesting.
A strange email Andrew had shown her two mornings earlier.
The message had appeared to come from her company.
SYSTEM MAINTENANCE — OFFICE CLOSED TEMPORARILY.
Emily had believed it.
Why wouldn’t she?
She had been exhausted.
Distracted.
Trapped inside a household where every question became an argument.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
Andrew laughed nervously.
“See? She doesn’t know what day it is.”
Emily looked toward him.
Something in his tone bothered her.
Not just cruelty.
Preparation.
As though he had been waiting for her to become confused.
Rebecca crouched beside the gate.
“Emily, what day do you think it is?”
“Thursday.”
Nobody answered.
Rain struck the iron bars.
Rebecca said softly, “It’s Sunday.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“No.”
“It’s Sunday morning. Twelve forty-three.”
Emily shook her head.
“That can’t be right.”
She remembered Wednesday.
She had driven home—
No.
Andrew had driven.
He had appeared outside the office unexpectedly.
He said her car battery was dead.
Emily remembered sitting in the passenger seat.
Remembered feeling unusually sleepy.
Remembered Margaret bringing her tea that evening.
Then—
Nothing clear.
Thursday morning.
Or what she thought had been Thursday.
She had awakened with Andrew beside her saying she had slept fourteen hours because she was depressed.
Friday—
Had there been a Friday?
Emily pressed both hands against the muddy grass.
Her stomach twisted.
Rebecca spoke carefully.
“When did you last physically enter your workplace?”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Wednesday.”
“Four days ago.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“No, I came downstairs every morning. Andrew told me—”
She stopped.
Andrew’s face revealed everything.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
Rebecca saw it too.
“Mr. Carter,” she said, “open the gate.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
Detective Bell stepped beside her.
“Andrew, this is becoming a very bad night to start arguing technicalities.”
“My attorney will—”
A groan came from behind Emily.
Harold.
Everyone turned.
The older man gripped the porch railing.
His complexion had gone gray.
Margaret hissed, “Go inside.”
Harold didn’t move.
Instead, he looked at Emily.
Then at Rebecca.
And whispered, “The side gate.”
Margaret spun around.
“Harold!”
“There’s a manual release behind the hedge.”
Andrew lunged toward him.
Detective Bell shouted.
“Stay where you are!”
Harold pointed shakily toward the eastern side of the yard.
Rebecca immediately moved.
Margaret grabbed Harold’s arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Enough.”
It was the first time Emily had ever heard him speak to Margaret like that.
Not loudly.
But firmly.
Harold looked twenty years older beneath the porch light.
“I said enough.”
Andrew stared at his father.
“You’re going to destroy this family.”
Harold looked at Emily lying in the mud.
“No.”
His eyes filled with something Emily had never seen before.
Shame.
“I think we already did.”
Within moments, Rebecca found the manual latch.
The gate opened.
Detective Bell rushed toward Emily while another officer restrained Andrew from approaching.
Rebecca removed her coat and draped it over Emily’s shoulders.
“You’re safe right now.”
Emily almost told her she wasn’t.
Safe felt like a word belonging to another language.
The ambulance arrived within minutes.
Paramedics stabilized Emily’s leg while asking questions.
Where did it hurt?
Could she move her toes?
Had she lost consciousness?
Had anyone struck her elsewhere?
Emily answered mechanically.
Then one paramedic asked, “How did this happen?”
The entire backyard seemed to hold its breath.
Margaret answered from the porch.
“She slipped.”
Rebecca turned.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Emily looked at Margaret.
The woman who had controlled every holiday.
Every meal.
Every visit.
Every conversation with Andrew.
The woman who had spent years convincing Emily that being a good wife meant becoming smaller.
Emily remembered the rolling pin.
The first blow.
The second.
Margaret screaming that Emily was ungrateful.
Andrew entering.
Seeing everything.
Choosing his mother.
“She hit me,” Emily said.
Margaret went pale.
“With what?” Rebecca asked.
“A wooden rolling pin.”
Andrew shouted, “Emily!”
Rebecca looked toward an officer.
“Separate them.”
Margaret’s voice became shrill.
“She attacked me first!”
“No,” Harold said.
Margaret stopped.
Everyone looked at him.
Harold stepped slowly off the porch.
His hands were trembling.
“She didn’t.”
“Harold.”
“I watched it.”
Margaret’s face transformed.
Not frightened.
Betrayed.
“You watched nothing.”
“I was sitting at the breakfast table.”
“You were reading.”
“I heard everything.”
Andrew pointed at his father.
“Stop talking.”
Harold looked at him.
“I’ve spent thirty-eight years stopping.”
The sentence seemed to wound Margaret physically.
She took one step backward.
Harold continued.
“I watched your mother control everyone in this house. I watched her choose your friends. Your schools. Your career. Your girlfriends.”
Andrew’s jaw clenched.
“That has nothing to do with tonight.”
“It has everything to do with tonight.”
Harold looked toward Emily.
“And I watched you become exactly like her.”
Andrew lunged.
Two officers caught him.
Margaret screamed.
The paramedics lifted Emily onto a stretcher.
As they wheeled her toward the gate, she saw Rebecca speaking quietly into her phone.
Then the agent approached.
“Emily, I need you to understand something before you leave.”
Emily’s heart began racing.
“What?”
“We came here tonight because of your disappearance.”
Rebecca paused.
“But your employer isn’t the only reason.”
Andrew stopped struggling.
That alone told Emily this mattered.
Rebecca looked directly at him.
“Your husband’s name came up in another investigation.”
Emily stared.
“What investigation?”
Rebecca glanced toward the ambulance.
“We’ll talk at the hospital.”
“No.”
Emily grabbed her sleeve.
“Please.”
Rebecca hesitated.
Then lowered her voice.
“For the past six months, someone has been accessing payroll records at your company.”
Emily frowned.
“I work in procurement.”
“We know.”
“I don’t have access to payroll.”
“Exactly.”
Andrew shouted from behind them.
“Don’t answer her questions!”
Rebecca didn’t even turn.
Emily felt ice spreading through her chest.
“What does that have to do with Andrew?”
“Several unauthorized transactions were routed through accounts associated with employees who had recently experienced major personal hardship.”
Emily’s miscarriage.
The months afterward.
Her leave from work.
The fog of grief.
Rebecca continued.
“Your employee profile was altered last week.”
“How?”
“Your emergency contact changed.”
Emily stared toward Andrew.
“From my mother?”
“To your husband.”
That wasn’t strange by itself.
Except Emily had never authorized it.
Rebecca continued.
“Your direct deposit instructions also changed.”
Emily’s pulse hammered.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“A joint account opened sixteen days ago.”
“I don’t have a joint account.”
Rebecca’s eyes didn’t leave hers.
“You do now.”
The ambulance doors opened.
Emily suddenly felt nauseated.
“My signature?”
“We’re examining it.”
Andrew began shouting again.
“She’s my wife! We share finances!”
Emily looked toward him.
Then understood why he had taken her identification.
Why her passport disappeared.
Why Margaret insisted on keeping her social security card “somewhere safer.”
Why Andrew demanded she quit.
This wasn’t simply control.
Someone needed her invisible.
The ambulance carried her away.
At Carolina Medical Center, doctors confirmed two fractures below her knee.
Surgery would likely be required.
Emily lay beneath fluorescent lights while nurses cut away the damp fabric around her leg.
Rebecca waited outside until the physicians finished.
Nearly two hours passed.
Emily expected the pain medicine to calm her.
It didn’t.
Her body hurt less.
Her mind became clearer.
And clarity was terrifying.
At 3:17 a.m., Rebecca entered carrying a paper cup of coffee and a folder.
“May I?”
Emily nodded.
Rebecca sat beside the bed.
“Andrew has requested an attorney.”
“Of course.”
“Margaret has been taken into custody pending charges related to your injury.”
Emily stared at the ceiling.
“And Harold?”
“Giving a statement.”
That surprised her.
Rebecca placed the folder beside her.
“Before tonight, when was the last time you spoke directly to your mother?”
Emily thought.
“Maybe five weeks ago.”
“Why so long?”
Emily felt embarrassed saying it aloud.
“Andrew said she was criticizing him and making my recovery worse. Then my mother supposedly sent me a message saying she needed space.”
Rebecca took out her phone.
“Did you ever call her afterward?”
“Andrew said she blocked me.”
Rebecca pressed something on the screen.
A woman answered immediately.
“Hello?”
Emily stopped breathing.
Her mother.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then a sob.
“Emily?”
Emily covered her mouth.
Her mother began crying.
“Oh my God. Emily, where are you?”
Rebecca quietly left the room.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“What happened?”
Emily couldn’t explain.
Not yet.
“Mom, did you block me?”
“What?”
“Did you send me a message saying you wanted space?”
“Never.”
Emily’s eyes closed.
Her mother was crying harder now.
“We’ve been calling you for weeks. Andrew said you didn’t want to speak to us.”
Emily turned her face toward the pillow.
“He told me the same thing about you.”
A long silence followed.
Then her mother said something worse.
“He told us you had entered a private mental-health program.”
Emily’s eyes opened.
“What?”
“He said you weren’t allowed phones while receiving treatment.”
The hospital room suddenly felt too small.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Emily remembered dinners.
Laundry.
Going to work.
Or believing she went to work.
Andrew had been constructing two realities.
One for her.
One for everyone outside.
Her mother lowered her voice.
“Emily, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“A woman called your father six days ago.”
Emily sat straighter.
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t give her name.”
“What did she say?”
“That we needed to find you.”
Emily gripped the blanket.
“She said, ‘If Emily stays in that house until Monday, she’ll lose more than her marriage.’”
Emily went cold.
“Did she say anything else?”
“Yes.”
Her mother hesitated.
“She said to ask Emily what happened to the blue folder.”
Emily stopped breathing.
The blue folder.
She knew exactly what it was.
Three months earlier, while reviewing vendor records at work, Emily had noticed a group of invoices that didn’t make sense.
Different suppliers.
Different states.
Almost identical payment amounts.
She printed several documents.
Put them in a blue folder.
Took them home.
She had planned to mention them to her manager.
Then the miscarriage happened.
Everything vanished beneath grief.
Including the folder.
Until now.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“I need to go.”
After ending the call, Emily pressed the nurse button.
“I need Agent Sloan.”
Rebecca returned five minutes later.
Emily told her everything.
The invoices.
The folder.
The strange suppliers.
Rebecca listened without interrupting.
“What happened to the folder?”
“I kept it in my desk.”
“At work?”
“At home.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Where?”
“In the upstairs guest room.”
“Did Andrew know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think carefully.”
Emily closed her eyes.
She remembered coming home one afternoon.
Andrew in the guest room.
Desk drawer open.
He said he was searching for printer paper.
The blue folder disappeared two days later.
Emily opened her eyes.
“He knew.”
Rebecca stood.
“What were the supplier names?”
Emily listed the ones she remembered.
Northstar Logistics.
Briar Industrial.
Canton Procurement Services.
Rebecca’s expression changed at the third.
“What?”
“Canton Procurement is part of our investigation.”
Emily’s throat tightened.
Rebecca began walking toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To call the team at your house.”
“Why?”
“Because if that folder still exists, we need it.”
But the folder wasn’t at the house.
Forty minutes later, Rebecca returned.
Nothing.
They searched the guest room.
The office.
Andrew’s bedroom.
Garage.
Cars.
No blue folder.
But they found something else.
Six cellphones.
Three laptops.
Copies of Emily’s identification.
And a locked metal case hidden beneath floorboards in the garage.
“What was inside?” Emily asked.
Rebecca sat down.
“Employee files.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Emily stared.
“From my company?”
“Yes.”
“Why would Andrew have those?”
“That’s what we intend to learn.”
“And Margaret?”
“Her fingerprints are on several documents.”
Emily’s stomach dropped.
Margaret didn’t understand corporate finance.
She barely understood email.
Unless—
“She worked in human resources.”
Rebecca looked up.
“Where?”
“Years ago. Not at my company.”
“What kind of work?”
“Benefits administration.”
Rebecca became very still.
Emily saw the connection forming.
Access.
Identities.
Personal hardship.
Bank details.
A household where documents could disappear without explanation.
Andrew hadn’t invented everything himself.
Maybe Margaret had taught him.
At sunrise, Harold arrived.
Rebecca permitted him five minutes.
He stood awkwardly beside Emily’s bed.
For the first time in twenty years of knowing him, he looked small.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Emily said nothing.
He nodded.
“I know that doesn’t help.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“I should have stopped her.”
“Yes.”
“I should have stopped Andrew.”
“Yes.”
Harold looked down.
Emily expected excuses.
He gave none.
That almost made it harder.
After a moment, he reached inside his jacket.
Rebecca immediately stepped closer.
Harold froze.
“It’s only a key.”
He opened his palm.
A small brass key lay there.
Emily recognized it.
Margaret’s sewing cabinet.
“She made me promise never to open it,” Harold said.
Rebecca took the key.
“Why give us this?”
“Because she checked that cabinet every night.”
Emily frowned.
“For sewing supplies?”
Harold looked at her.
“Margaret hasn’t sewn anything since 2009.”
Rebecca’s gaze sharpened.
“Where is the cabinet?”
“Bedroom closet.”
The search team opened it at 7:42 a.m.
Inside were no needles.
No fabric.
No thread.
There were envelopes.
Bank cards.
Employment records.
Birth certificates.
Photocopies of signatures.
And one blue folder.
Rebecca brought photographs to Emily.
“That’s it.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca opened the digital copies.
Emily recognized her handwritten notes immediately.
Boxes circled.
Payment amounts underlined.
One sentence written in the margin:
SAME AUTHORIZATION CODE?
Rebecca pointed beneath it.
“You noticed the fraud before our investigators did.”
Emily stared at the page.
“Then why didn’t they destroy this?”
“They may have needed to know what you knew.”
Emily slowly understood.
That was why Andrew had watched her.
Why Margaret questioned her about work.
Why they didn’t simply throw the folder away.
They were determining whether Emily had told anyone.
“How much money?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“We’re still calculating.”
“How much?”
“Possibly several million dollars.”
Emily felt dizzy.
“You think Andrew stole millions?”
“We think multiple people did.”
“Margaret?”
“Possibly.”
“Who else?”
Rebecca closed the folder.
“That’s where things become complicated.”
The door opened.
Detective Bell entered.
His expression was grim.
He handed Rebecca his phone.
She read the screen.
Then read it again.
“What happened?” Emily asked.
Rebecca didn’t answer immediately.
“Agent Sloan?”
Rebecca looked toward Bell.
“Confirmed?”
“Yes.”
Emily pushed herself higher against the pillows.
“Someone tell me.”
Bell sighed.
“Andrew’s attorney arrived twenty minutes ago.”
“So?”
“He isn’t a criminal defense attorney.”
Emily frowned.
“What is he?”
Rebecca answered.
“Corporate counsel.”
Emily’s blood went cold.
“For my company?”
Rebecca nodded.
Emily stared between them.
“That makes no sense.”
“We agree.”
“Why would my company send a lawyer for Andrew?”
Neither spoke.
Then Emily understood the question they were asking themselves.
Andrew didn’t work there.
Margaret didn’t work there.
Yet someone inside Emily’s company knew Andrew needed protection before charges had even been filed.
Emily whispered, “Who called him?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does he say?”
“That Andrew has consulted with the corporation regarding unspecified internal compliance matters.”
“That’s impossible.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Probably.”
Emily looked at the blue folder photographs.
Twenty-seven employee identities.
Supplier fraud.
Her vanished paycheck.
Then another memory surfaced.
Her manager.
Daniel Pierce.
Two weeks before the miscarriage, Daniel had called Emily into his office.
He seemed nervous.
He shut the door.
Asked whether she had noticed anything unusual in vendor reconciliation.
Emily had almost mentioned the invoices.
But before she could, Daniel’s assistant interrupted them.
The conversation never resumed.
“What about Daniel Pierce?”
Rebecca stopped moving.
“Your manager?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last speak with him?”
“Wednesday.”
Rebecca and Bell exchanged a look.
“What?”
Rebecca sat beside her.
“Emily… Daniel Pierce hasn’t been at work since Tuesday.”
Emily stared.
“That’s wrong.”
“No.”
“He was in his office Wednesday morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“I spoke to him.”
“What did he say?”
Emily searched her memory.
Daniel sitting behind his desk.
His office unusually dark.
He looked exhausted.
He said one sentence.
Emily, whatever happens, don’t sign anything.
Then Andrew arrived downstairs fifteen minutes later.
Emily suddenly felt sick.
“He warned me.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
Bell asked, “Where is Pierce now?”
Emily looked at them.
“You don’t know?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“He’s missing.”
The room went silent.
Emily whispered, “Since Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“But I saw him Wednesday.”
“If that’s true,” Rebecca said, “you may be the last confirmed person who saw him.”
Emily thought about the anonymous woman calling her parents.
The blue folder.
The false mental-health story.
Her altered bank information.
The three missing days.
Then something else came back.
A detail she had dismissed.
When Andrew picked her up Wednesday, Daniel’s car had been parked near the loading dock.
Not in his normal space.
The trunk was open.
A man stood beside it.
Emily couldn’t see his face.
But she remembered the jacket.
Dark green.
With a small embroidered logo.
Briar Industrial.
One of the suspicious suppliers.
Emily grabbed Rebecca’s wrist.
“I saw someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
She described the jacket.
Bell immediately stepped outside to make a call.
Rebecca’s phone rang thirty seconds later.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face changed.
Then she slowly looked at Emily.
“They found Daniel’s car.”
Emily’s heart hammered.
“Where?”
“Parking garage beneath your office building.”
“That’s not where I saw it.”
“We know.”
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“The building’s security system shows the car entered the garage Wednesday night.”
“After I saw it?”
“Yes.”
“Who drove it?”
“That’s the problem.”
“The cameras?”
“Deleted.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Of course.
Everything around her had been erased.
Calls.
Messages.
Days.
Money.
Now video.
Rebecca began walking away.
Emily stopped her.
“Wait.”
Rebecca turned.
“My phone.”
“What about it?”
“Andrew took it.”
“We recovered several phones.”
“Mine has a blue case.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“None were blue.”
Emily stared.
Andrew hadn’t hidden her phone in the house.
He had moved it.
“Can you track it?”
“If it’s still powered.”
Rebecca made the call.
Twenty-three minutes later, the result came.
The phone was active.
Not at Andrew’s house.
Not at Emily’s office.
It was moving.
Northbound on Interstate 85.
Someone had turned it on at 8:11 a.m.
Rebecca’s team traced the signal.
Concord.
Kannapolis.
Salisbury.
Emily watched the location updates from her hospital bed.
“Who has it?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“We’re trying to determine that.”
Then the signal stopped.
Lexington, North Carolina.
An abandoned roadside motel.
Agents arrived forty minutes later.
Room 18 was empty.
Emily’s phone lay on the bed.
Beside it was a sealed envelope.
Rebecca returned to the hospital shortly before noon carrying a photograph of the envelope.
Emily’s name was written across it.
Not typed.
Handwritten.
She recognized the handwriting immediately.
Daniel Pierce.
Her missing manager.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Rebecca allowed Emily to read a photocopy.
Emily,
If you are reading this, Andrew finally lost control of the situation.
Do not trust the company.
Do not trust anyone who says this is only about stolen money.
The payments were hiding something else.
Your miscarriage was not random.
Emily stopped reading.
The room tilted.
“What?”
Rebecca took the page.
“Emily—”
“No.”
She snatched it back.
Her hands trembled violently.
The next lines were worse.
I found your medical reimbursement file three weeks ago.
Someone paid a private clinic using an employee vendor code.
The authorization was entered twelve hours before you were admitted to the hospital.
I tried to reach you.
Andrew intercepted me.
I made one mistake.
I told him what I knew.
Emily stared at the words until they blurred.
“No.”
Rebecca called for a nurse.
Emily pushed the blanket away.
“No. What clinic?”
“We’re verifying it.”
“What does he mean?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“My miscarriage?”
“Emily.”
“WHAT DOES HE MEAN?”
Rebecca took both her hands.
“We do not know.”
Emily sobbed once.
Sharp.
Involuntary.
Then forced herself to continue reading.
There was one final paragraph.
If Rebecca Sloan is with you, she can be trusted.
But only Rebecca.
The person running this operation is not Andrew.
It is not Margaret.
They are frightened of the same person you should be frightened of.
The final line was written darker.
As though Daniel had pressed the pen hard into the paper.
Ask Rebecca why she recognized my name before you said it.
Emily’s breathing stopped.
Slowly, she looked up.
Rebecca stood beside the bed.
Silent.
Emily remembered.
When she first mentioned Daniel Pierce, Rebecca had immediately said:
Your manager?
Emily had never told her Daniel was her manager.
Not then.
She had only said his name.
Emily’s hand tightened around the letter.
“Rebecca.”
The agent didn’t move.
“How did you know Daniel Pierce was my manager?”
Detective Bell, standing near the door, turned sharply.
Rebecca’s face became unreadable.
Then her phone vibrated.
She looked down at the screen.
Whatever she saw drained the color from her face.
Bell said, “What?”
Rebecca whispered, “We have a problem.”
Emily stared at her.
“What problem?”
Rebecca looked toward the hospital corridor.
Then she locked the door.
“Andrew just disappeared from federal custody.”
Emily felt her heart stop.
Bell reached for his weapon.
“That’s impossible.”
Rebecca showed him the screen.
“No.”
Her eyes shifted toward Emily.
“Someone inside the investigation just helped him escape.”
Then every light in Emily’s hospital room went dark.
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